Hyderabad: While Telangana celebrated, an air of despondency and anger prevailed in the neighbouring Telugu state of Andhra Pradesh, yesterday, as the two states observed the second anniversary of the bifurcation of erstwhile Andhra Pradesh.
In reorganised Andhra Pradesh (AP), hundreds of thousands of people, led by state Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu, gathered in the heart of Vijayawada, the makeshift capital of AP to participate in the “reconstruction oath”, to work hard to rebuild the state.
Naidu administered an oath to the people to dedicate themselves to build a strong and prosperous AP that, he said, suffered huge losses due to the split. The state assembly speaker, Kodela Sivaprasad Rao, and several ministers and top government officials were present, and a similar oath was administered to the government employees at the temporary secretariat.
Talking of the progress his two-year-old government had made, Naidu said that despite immense difficulties and challenges, he was working hard and trying his best to develop Andhra Pradesh into a model state.
Holding Congress party responsible for the state’s problems, he said that he had opposed the bifurcation of the state. “I had said at the time itself that it will demoralise the people of Andhra Pradesh,” he said.
The state government has organised a weeklong campaign to create awareness among its people through various programmes about the losses the state suffered on account of bifurcation.
Summing up the feelings in the state, union minister and Telugu Desam Party (TDP) leader Ashok Gajapati Raju told a similar meeting in New Delhi, “at the time of bifurcation all the debts were given to Andhra Pradesh and all the assets were given to Telangana”.
He urged the people never to forget the injustice done to them by the then UPA government at the Centre.
